New data calls into query whether or not an American-made Patriot missile protection system stopped a ballistic missile assault final month by rebels in Yemen at Saudi Arabia’s capital metropolis of Riyadh, The New York Times reported Monday.

President Donald Trump even touted the U.S. missile system to reporters the day after the incident occurred.

“Our system knocked the missile out of the air,” Trump was quoted as saying aboard Air Power One on his approach to Japan on Nov. four. “That is how good we’re. No person makes what we make, and now we’re promoting it everywhere in the world.”

However the Instances mentioned a analysis staff taking a look at proof in photographs and movies now believes these early reviews have been flawed and that “the missile’s warhead flew unimpeded over Saudi defenses and practically hit its goal, Riyadh airport. The warhead detonated so near the home terminal that clients jumped out of their seats.”

CNBC reached out to the Pentagon for remark however a spokesman referred inquiries to the Saudis. CNBC additionally reached out to the Saudi Ministry of Protection but it surely did not reply to an electronic mail request for remark.

U.S.-made air protection methods are relied on not solely by the Saudis to defend towards missile assaults from Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen however by South Korea, Japan and American forces to counter towards North Korean missiles. However specialists say the protection methods can miss targets and should not foolproof.

“Governments lie concerning the effectiveness of those methods,” Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation program on the Middlebury Institute of Worldwide Research in Monterey, California, who led the analysis staff was quoted by the Instances as saying. “And that ought to fear the hell out of us.”

The declare that the missile was intercepted and destroyed Nov. four was carried by the Saudi Press Company and different media retailers, which quoted an announcement from the Arab coalition forces preventing in Yemen.

Nonetheless, the Instances mentioned data gleamed from social media, together with movies, reveals that “the sample of missile particles littering Riyadh suggests missile defenses both hit the innocent rear part of the missile or missed it totally.”

In different phrases, the warhead itself was most likely by no means intercepted by the Patriot protection system. That was regardless of the ballistic missile touring simply greater than 600 miles from its estimated launch location in Yemen.

Moreover, the paper mentioned there was an explosion about 12 miles away from the Riyadh airport that’s probably a sign “the warhead continued unimpeded towards its goal.” It identified that the missile’s warhead is “smaller and tougher to hit.”

Raytheon, maker of the Patriot missile system, mentioned on its web site that the protection expertise has been utilized by 5 nations in additional than 200 fight engagements, each towards tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles in addition to plane. It mentioned “greater than 100 ballistic missiles” have been efficiently intercepted in fight operations world wide.